Friends of BNSF is about to get a new home! We’re excited to announce that starting today and over the next several weeks, the Friends of BNSF community will transfer to a private group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/bnsf.friends/. The current website has served us well, but it’s now seven years old, and it’s time to move into new digs.

Moving to Facebook will make it easier for you to share and enjoy members’ train photos and discuss BNSF-related topics with other group members. And it will make it easier for more fans and supporters of BNSF to find us and join our community. For many of you, Facebook is already a familiar and comfortable place to hang out online. You’re already spending time on Facebook, so visiting the Friends community will be easier than ever.

Local BNSF employees donated 25 bicycles to the Boys & Girls Club of Spokane County on June 20 and helped the kids assemble the bikes themselves. These bicycles will stay at the club in northern Spokane County, Wash. to be shared and used by over 750 member children.

Earlier this week the BNSF Railway Foundation awarded the Lincoln Community Foundation $15,000 toward the endowment established for the Chief Standing Bear Scholarship Fund. Each year the scholarship is offered to two Native American students who are enrolled in a tribe and who will be attending a higher-education institution.

The scholarship is named after Chief Standing Bear, a Ponca chief who significantly advanced civil rights for Native Americans and who has left a lasting impression on the state of Nebraska and the nation.

Judi Gaiashkibos, Executive Director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, and Senator Tom Brewer accepted the donation on behalf of the community foundation. Chris Howell, director, Tribal Relations, represented BNSF at the ceremony.

The photo above shows Howell, Gaiashkibos and Brewer at the Centennial Mall in Lincoln, Neb., in front of the Chief Standing Bear Statue.

The BNSF Employee Special is wrapping up its 2018 tour today! The annual train trip visits cities on BNSF's rail network to thank BNSF employees and their families with a fun two-hour train ride. Each year it visits a different section of the network. This year it stopped in 11 cities in four states: Arkansas City, Kan.; Lafayette, La.' Enid, Okla.; Oklahoma City; Madill, Okla.; Fort Worth; Wichita Falls, Texas; Temple, Texas; Houston; Silsbee, Texas and Teague, Texas.

More than eight months after Hurricane Harvey, large areas of Texas are still recovering. In Beaumont, which received 15 more inches of rain than greater Houston, some 7,000 homes remain either condemned or in need of repair, with trash and rubble still littering the streets.

In early May, a community project organized by BNSF employees gave some Beaumont residents hope that they will soon be able to move back into their once-uninhabitable homes. Joined by volunteers from customer Trans-Global Solutions, BNSF employees fanned out across the Beaumont area to work on 10 homes.

"We focused on houses of the elderly and the disabled. We hung sheetrock, installed insulation and got these structures back to being the homes their residents so need," said Diane Wagenaar, a sales manager on BNSF's Industrial Products team. "We met some of the homeowners, who were so thankful. One cried and told us she didn't think anyone cared."